Fundamentals of Pre-Hire Process

Video Transcript

" So let's talk about the new hire process and determining not only what you're going to be looking for, but what's really expected during the course of this procedure. Now, when you're sorting resumes, one thing to look for is, obviously, you need to know that the person wrote a legible resume. So I look for indicators like grammar use correctly words using the right pretense and the right context. But also the resume to tell me a story. From start to finish. This is a person's professional background. And if I can't read very clearly, and within a few moments, what the composure of this experience is telling me, and chances are, it's not something I'm looking for are the things to consider when you're looking into resumes. Let's say for a technical resume, technical resumes, I would look for certifications, I'd look for backgrounds, maybe licensures. Now, when you're thinking about sales, people, sales people may have training courses that they took from one of their gurus that have just happened to be in their area. Nonetheless, these are some of the things we're looking for as you sort through resumes. So let's say you have a stack of qualified resumes. Here's a little unique tip that's worked really well for me over the course of my career, you want to give yourself a few stacks, the stack of the best candidates are going to go up first. And that's the ones you're going to call down first, the ones are going to try to go through the process with first, don't be afraid of having two or three stacks of people that are in deciding gradients of best to worst. And don't be afraid to screen some people out. Some people aren't meant for your environment. And it's okay to weed them out in the sorting process. So a lot of people don't know where to start when it comes to phone screening, or even vetting the candidate. And that's where we're going to start right now. When you phone screen applicants, and remember, that's what they are at this point, they're just applicants. But when your phone screening them, consider the time of day your calling, reasonably HR people just seem to think sometimes that because you're calling applicants, they should pick up the phone, when in fact, they're probably working a job right now. So give consideration over what time you're calling and trying to position your calls in a way where perhaps they're just getting off of work or just coming up on a break where they might be able to pick up this call or might be able to return your phone call. That's one thing to consider when you start phone screening. The next thing you want to consider is your phone screening is be ready to write down what you hear. So many times HR professionals get lost and trying to figure out what they remember, if they would have just wrote it down to begin with, it'd be a lot better place. So be ready to receive the information, write it down and document because at the end of the day, we're going to be held to those type of standards. In the event that we're asked how we push somebody through the process. So let's say you phone screen a bunch of great applicants and you've got maybe three or four that you just seem to want to move forward. What you do in this scenario is you'll want to get them a disc profile or some sort of pre hire assessment that lets you know more about their given talent, behavior and motive. You want to make sure this is provided as part of the pre hire process, as it meets all EEOC guidelines and expectations. After they've completed a disc profile assessment something you can provide to them as a preliminary questionnaire. This preliminary questionnaire is a series of questions that helps you vet the person out beforehand. This really does help with all of our HR recruiting, something we've done for the last few years has seems to work very well, because what ends up happening is we let the applicants decide who deserves our attention. Most people who get back their disc profile and get back their preliminary questionnaire quickly, are those that may be a little bit more considered of the importance of this job role. Whereas those who choose to take their time may take too long and missing the opportunity but always letting us know something important that perhaps they're just not that into the job. So let's say you've had a wonderful applicant, complete the phone screen disc profile and the preliminary questionnaire. Now it's time to start considering a first interview and see the first interview This is a unique opportunity where I liken it to a first date. Now, for those of you haven't dated recently, let me tell you, it's still just as intense as you remember it. But the first interview tells us a lot about the person. It will let us know how they perceive a challenge, how they identify conflict, but also how they endure during a seemingly important albeit tumultuous environment. First, interviews aren't easy. There's a lot of executives who can't get through it even though they've been out of the job market for 10 years. But there's a lot of sales people who seem to ace it so easily. So remember this first interview, you'll want to make sure that you're prepared for it. leave enough time to ask good questions, and be prepared to be able to answer good questions because today's applicants are ready with a list of questions ready to be posed inside of an interview process. The first interview is really our first opportunity to experience them in a live environment. Give them the courtesy and respect of making sure your cell phone is outside of the room. Make sure your undivided attention remains with them. Now let's consider a few things that don't work very well for a first interview. One thing that doesn't work very well is group engagements. Remember, this is a first interview it's like a first date. How would a first date feel if you brought all of your grandma, grandpa cousins and everybody else in your friends list to then engagement They'd be a little put off and you would never get a second date. So the first interview needs to be something more, it's one on one, you and the applicant, giving him the person enough time to accredit their experiences, but to give you the potential understanding of where they're going in the future. Now, another thing that doesn't work very well inside of a first interview, is when employers seem to overcompensate, they'll bring somebody in for a face to face and right towards the end of it, they'll start introducing this person to people around them. This person, that person, this job title in the next and before you know it, that applicant is confused. They're confused and not knowing which is most important, which is and who's not. So you want to make sure you don't overcompensate in the first interview, keep it simple, keep it personal, and keep it to the point. So best case scenario is you have an applicant that has gone through the first interview process. And if they've done that successfully, now you can call them a candidate, a candidate who is ready for the second interview. And a second interview, this is a unique opportunity to start introducing more people to the equation. You'll want to second interview to be not only with your HR professional on staff, but you'll want to bring in the department manager specifically that there'll be reporting to give these two people an opportunity to talk, give them an opportunity to know one another, and uniquely give them an opportunity to talk about the position and the experience of the position. When you can do this and making sure that the department manager and the potential employee find symmetry. In this type of engagement, what you'll find is you'll have a more solid and a more reputable type of response for the manager. Because the next thing you need to do after a successful interview is ask him how'd you like him, and you want to make sure there's something more than just good or bad, there should be a cultural response. Now each type of position has a uniqueness to how the second interview is going to go. For staff level, you'll want to make sure that the department managers in on that conversation. However, for managers, managers have a different type of environment as we increase accountability as we also increase the exposure to other people in the work environment. So that would mean at the second interview, I would introduce other managers to this management interview. The same goes for directors or executives. Frankly, the higher we go up the ladder, the more I need people to buy off and buy into this person before I make the decision to hire. So let's say that a candidate wowed us to the first interview in the second interview, and now you're ready to consider an offer. It's an exciting time to be at this stage. But in order to get to the point of actually proposing a job offer, here's a few details we should give consideration over first. One of the first details to give consideration for is making sure that you have salary and your back pocket ready to go. Small and medium sized business owners often get concerned about having enough salary ready to go or not having enough and just making that a point of being able to stop the recruiting process. Here's a simple expectation to set and knowing how to start down the pathway of knowing whether you're ready to hire this person or not. Whether it be a staff member, manager salesperson. A good rule to stick by is making sure you have between six to nine months of salary in your back pocket. Because every person is going to take a little bit of onboarding time and ramp up time to get started before you start seeing true performance come out of this individual. So make sure it's your salary set aside and ready to go. The next thing to consider is making sure that their career path is ready and appropriate to their type of engagement. You wouldn't want to pass over a tech roadmap to somebody who's just been hired for a sales position. So use the resources available to you and identify what type of role they are, and which type of career path best fits their trajectory moving forward. Now, as you've gotten through the career path, and you've also set aside the right type of salary compensation. The next thing you need to think about is bandwidth. What type of bandwidth do you have? And what type of bandwidth is your manager have? and preparing a training roadmap for the first 30 6090 days? Do you have enough time to devote to making this person successful? Do you have enough time to making sure your manager has enough available resources to train this person for success? If you don't, there may be a stoppage in the recruiting process that stops right with your manager. So make sure that your training roadmap, your onboarding roadmap is ready to be received and also ready to be acted upon. Now the next step is sitting down and presenting the offer. You want to make sure that you do this face to face. If at all possible, call them in for an interview type engagement. Set aside between 30 minutes and 45 minutes and set down the roadmap set down the career path and set down the job description. You want to make sure that you convey the importance of this decision. So the applicant and the candidate consider exactly what this means for their career path. The other thing you want to consider is making sure that you give your candidate a specific timeframe to respond to this opportunity. I like to give candidates 48 hours, that's 48 hours to consider what's best for them, perhaps talk it over with family members and decide whether this opportunity fits their career trajectory. 48 hours is a good timeframe that gives you the benefit of also understanding how they respond to it. And whether this person best fits you as well. "